SEO and content marketing

SEO and content marketing are often treated as two separate areas of online marketing. Content marketing and SEO should be integrated if you want to pursue a successful online marketing strategy.

Some content marketers even argue that successful SEO can only be achieved through successful content marketing. We will take a closer look at this claim.

To do this, we will first take a closer look at the two disciplines and then take a look at possible symbioses and overlaps.

This much in advance: search engine optimization benefits significantly from well-structured content marketing. However, the best content does not become visible through its quality alone, but needs SEO to land in the sunny places of search engines such as Google.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimizationand is a process that aims to increase the visibility of content on popular search engines. The overall aim is to generate increased traffic to your own website through increased visibility.

What exactly does this mean? Every search engine has a so-called search engine result page (SERP). For the user, this is the page on which the search results are displayed.

It should quickly become clear that websites that are displayed directly on the first page for a search term (the so-called keyword) have higher click rates than those on page 4.

In order to land on the coveted page 1, search engine optimization makes use of various instruments, which are used on-page and off-page.

On the one hand, SEO measures concern the technical functionality and structure, as well as the design of the website. SEO efforts also include, for example, optimization with regard to the mobile user experience. Another important component is the actual content of the website.

Since content plays a major role, you can already see how strongly SEO and content marketing are intertwined. Basically, they cannot be operated completely separately from each other.

Good content and a content strategy geared towards it are the main components of content marketing and search engine optimization.

OffPage SEO is a primarily cool and technical perspective on search engine optimization. In addition to the technical structure of the website mentioned in the previous paragraph, the link structure plays a major role here.

Qualitative backlinks, social media signals and general authority are further factors that are rated positively by search engines and can be counted as off-page SEO.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a crucial element in online marketing. The aim is to create relevant and high-quality content that generates new leads.

The content is adapted to the respective target group and, in the best case, initiates an action on the part of the target group.

This does not mean that they have to become customers of a product. Content marketing doesn’t have to be about sales. However, good content marketing can certainly have a positive impact on sales, especially if good content leads to higher visibility. This is why content marketing is basically also one of the tasks of an SEO agency.

In addition to sales, good content can also fulfill completely different tasks, such as entertaining or educating the target group. However, it is always important that real added value is created.

Keyword research can help to identify possible problems and further questions from the target group.

This primarily tells you which search queries are particularly frequent and you can then serve them with content. Structuring the content along the keywords would then again be part of content marketing SEO.

The internet is filled with seemingly endless content and an online marketing strategy must take this into account, as there is a real danger of duplicate content , which should be avoided at best.

Of course, there are also very brazen content marketing specialists who practice the fine art of copying content, but when it comes to the question of search engine optimization, this duplicated content is penalized.

What is the difference between SEO and content marketing?

We only want to stay on the surface here, as this article is more about the similarities and usability of both online marketing tools.

First and foremost, content marketing aims to provide the target group of a website with relevant content for the sake of content or to encourage a certain action by the target group.

• SEO is a more technical approach to increasing the visibility of a website or domain
• Content marketing primarily aims to provide the target group of a website with relevant content in order to generate a certain reaction from the target group

So far so good, let’s move on to the exciting part.

What are the connections between content marketing and SEO?

In order to answer this question adequately, we will first try to define “content marketing SEO”.

Content marketing SEO is the sustainable and organic visualization of a website through relevant, qualitative and unique content, which is structured according to the principles of search engine optimization.

Let’s take a look at this in detail.

Sustainable and organic visualization

In the early SEO years, when the search engine algorithm was much simpler and less complex, it could be tricked regularly.

So-called keyword stuffing, for example, improved the ranking of a website relatively quickly and unique content was not judged nearly as critically as it is today.

This made it relatively easy to quickly push a page in the rankings, but with each further development of the algorithm, such superficially SEO-optimized pages were penalized.

Qualitative content marketing, on the other hand, does not lead to the top with the same speed, but the place in the search results is much more secure once it has been achieved.

Relevant, qualitative and unique content with regard to SEO principles

Detailed keyword research is always the first step here. If you know which search queries are made by the target group, then you can serve them specifically.

In addition, various programs can be used to determine the optimal text structure from an SEO perspective. These two premises are brought together and you have quality content that is optimally found in the search results (simply put).

It cannot be emphasized enough how important the term “unique” is. Copying is mercilessly penalized by the search engine algorithm and generally has nothing to do with content marketing.

Good SEO integrates content marketing and vice versa

For many companies and individuals, both terms are still foreign concepts. Email and social media marketing are particularly popular in online marketing. Both have their place in the marketing mix, but nothing increases the chances of reaching your target group as significantly as SEO.

If someone wants to find out about a product or service, it is highly likely that they will use one of the popular search engines to find the information they are looking for.

This is exactly where content marketing SEO provides the information that users need. Visible in the search results and qualitative on the website.

How exactly does content marketing help SEO?

SEO is not an end in itself and pure visibility doesn’t bring you much at first. Let’s say you somehow make it to number 1 in search queries via SEO, which largely ignores content marketing.

How long is a user likely to stay on this website if it has virtually nothing to offer in terms of content? Exactly, as long as he needs to move the mouse pointer to close the tab! And you will profit just as little from the traffic generated.

As already mentioned several times, everything starts with keyword research. If you now know what the supposed target group is looking for in relation to a topic, product or service, you can align the content of the website accordingly.

The structure of the content in terms of text structure, keyword use and embedding in the overall technical structure of the website is then important for SEO. After all, the content must be easy to find and use.

Another very important factor that results from content marketing together with SEO is the use of backlinks. In other words, links from and to other pages. These backlinks should be chosen wisely, as quality and relevance also play a major role here.

Content created via social media can also offer great added value for the visibility of a website through meaningful links. Email marketing, on the other hand, looks rather pale.

How do you create SEO content?

The approach can be described in 4 steps. There probably won’t be much new content here, but you can see again in chronological order how to best design SEO content.

• Determining the target group – Before embarking on marketing activities, you must of course determine the target group you want to reach. The same applies to content marketing. If you know who you want to reach, then you can create meaningful content. Of course, you have to ask yourself what potential customers want to know about a product or service. Keyword research is then carried out on this basis.
• Keyword research – The aim is to find out what search queries your target group makes to the search engines. In most cases, there are a whole host of keywords that are searched for in connection with a topic. From this abundance of keywords, you should then fish out the most important ones and design the content of the website according to these keywords. Blogs and guides are a very good way to serve a wide variety of keywords on a topic.
• Creating good content – Once you have your keywords for a topic, you can start thinking about creating content for it. Blogs, as mentioned above, are a variant, but nothing special anymore. If you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors, you should come up with original ideas for processing the content. A good writing style, clear examples and visual presentation are good starting points.
• Keep renewing content – content marketing is an ongoing process. A regular review is therefore necessary if you want to achieve long-term success. There are always new relevant keywords for a topic, or perhaps a better alternative for the presentation of content. Sometimes old information is simply no longer up to date.

Let’s summarize!

As mentioned at the beginning, content marketing and SEO are basically two separate online marketing tools. However, if you want to be successful in one of the two areas, it is essential to integrate both instruments in appropriate places.

Content is always created for people first, not for search engines, and this should be taken into particular consideration in SEO content marketing. Originality and relevance are much more important than the excessive placement of keywords.

If these principles are observed, then integrated SEO content marketing leads to long-term increased visibility of the website while at the same time increasing the time spent on the website with all the positive side effects associated with this.